Friday, November 12, 2010

There seems to be a plague of this sort of thing

Passive–aggressive behavior, a personality trait, is passive, sometimes obstructionistresistance to following through with expectations in interpersonal or occupational situations. It is a personality trait marked by a pervasive pattern of negative attitudes and passive, usually disavowed resistance in interpersonal or occupational situations.

It can manifest itself as learned helplessness, procrastination, stubbornness, resentment, sullenness, or deliberate/repeated failure to accomplish requested tasks for which one is (often explicitly) responsible.[1]

Signs and symptoms

The book Living with the Passive-Aggressive Man lists 11 responses that may help identify passive-aggressive behavior:[1]

  • Ambiguity or speaking cryptically: a means of engendering a feeling of insecurity in others
  • Chronically being late and forgetting things: another way to exert control or to punish.
  • Fear of competition
  • Fear of dependency
  • Fear of intimacy as a means to act out anger: The passive aggressive often cannot trust. Because of this, they guard themselves against becoming intimately attached to someone.
  • Making chaotic situations
  • Making excuses for non-performance in work teams
  • Obstructionism
  • Procrastination
  • Sulking
  • Victimization response: instead of recognizing one's own weaknesses, tendency to blame others for own failures.

A passive-aggressive person may not have all of these behaviors, and may have other[clarification needed] non-passive-aggressive traits.


These bastards are in dire need of bastinado followed by keel-hauling- for a first offense.

Dealing with a couple of these right now and they are rapidly approaching the need for percussive therapy!

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